Well, I've never seen Twilight, so I have no opinion on her acting skills in it, but she was ok in Adventureland and seemed to have a decent range. Nothing amazing, but not terrible, either. All the pictures with her having the same expression seem to come from red carpet type things, which I'd think would get old real quick, so I can't really fault her for that. Considering that I was thinking the quotes meant the "actress" was Kim Kardashian, I'd say it could be worse.

Babwa Wawa:They knew damned well they would be making a sequel to New Moon, and they signed a virtually unknown actress to fill a key role in that movie. Why wouldn't they just give her a contract for the entire series? But not doing so, they had to realize they were giving her license to demand huge paydays going forward.

Business 101: No contract is non-negotiable. Negotiation is not about what's on the papers; it's about who has leverage. The reason why most contracts aren't re-negotiated is that, when founded on a background of static factors and both sides at least willing to accept the terms, it's a royal pain to start the process all over again. But that's not the case when an actress sees her face tied to a cash cow worth over a BILLION dollars.

So, for all we know (I don't, but bear with me here), they very well may have had her sign that contract. But when Twilight exploded in popularity, at some point her agent realized they can force the studio to re-negotiate. How? Well. . . how can you force her to work? Threaten to fire her? That's a laugh. Sue her in court? After lawyers take their cut they won't recoup their losses no matter how much they paid her for previous movies. Break her knuckles? You've destroyed your franchise's key asset. Meanwhile you've invested a lot of money for the next movie, the media's salivating for a scandal and there's a stockholders' meeting coming up. You gotta start filming. Maybe you could kidnap her and lock her in a trailer, but when the camera's rolling she can decide to just sit there and not say a single line. Which may actually improve the quality of these movies, but unless the studio delivers to audience expectations no one gets paid. In other words, she's got all the leverage. That's nothing to hate her for; we should all be so lucky.

There are cases where an actor was replaced, usually with disastrous results because the instant blow to the franchise's popularity was much worse than whatever the actor was demanding. So in other words, not even your trump card can beat her cards. No point in bluffing.

Don't weep for the studios, though. . . they're making their money. If they weren't, they'd know. They have their bean counters crunching the numbers on this stuff and the agent would know VERY quickly if they were biting off more than there was to chew.

If you want to shed tears, don't shed tears over the injustice that this plain untalented girl is making a crapton of money. Shed tears for society demanding her over real talent. She would have no leverage without her horde of rabid fans.

dragonchild:Business 101: No contract is non-negotiable. Negotiation is not about what's on the papers; it's about who has leverage. The reason why most contracts aren't re-negotiated is that, when founded on a background of static factors and both sides at least willing to accept the terms, it's a royal pain to start the process all over again. But that's not the case when an actress sees her face tied to a cash cow worth over a BILLION dollars.

So, for all we know (I don't, but bear with me here), they very well may have had her sign that contract. But when Twilight exploded in popularity, at some point her agent realized they can force the studio to re-negotiate. How? Well. . . how can you force her to work? Threaten to fire her? That's a laugh. Sue her in court? After lawyers take their cut they won't recoup their losses no matter how much they paid her for previous movies. Break her knuckles? You've destroyed your franchise's key asset. Meanwhile you've invested a lot of money for the next movie, the media's salivating for a scandal and there's a stockholders' meeting coming up. You gotta start filming. Maybe you could kidnap her and lock her in a trailer, but when the camera's rolling she can decide to just sit there and not say a single line. Which may actually improve the quality of these movies, but unless the studio delivers to audience expectations no one gets paid. In other words, she's got all the leverage. That's nothing to hate her for; we should all be so lucky.

There are cases where an actor was replaced, usually with disastrous results because the instant blow to the franchise's popularity was much worse than whatever the actor was demanding. So in other words, not even your trump card can beat her cards. No point in bluffing.

Don't weep for the studios, though. . . they're making their money. If they weren't, they'd know. They have their bean counters crunching the numbers on this stuff and the agent would know VERY quickly if they were biting off more tha ...

Good points, though I'm not weeping for the studios, nor am I begrudging her the payday.

But on these big franchises where there's no doubt that sequels will be made, I have to think that there's more profit to be made and less risk to be had if you have them all shot before the the first one is released like they did with the Lord of the Rings.

Babwa Wawa:But on these big franchises where there's no doubt that sequels will be made, I have to think that there's more profit to be made and less risk to be had if you have them all shot before the the first one is released like they did with the Lord of the Rings.

yeah, but only if they first one does well. otherwise you're sitting there with 6 bust movies instead of 1

Babwa Wawa:But on these big franchises where there's no doubt that sequels will be made, I have to think that there's more profit to be made and less risk to be had if you have them all shot before the the first one is released like they did with the Lord of the Rings.

MORE risk. There were dramatic cost savings for LotR but if the first movie flopped (and really it was far from certain it would've been a commercial success), New Line would've gone bankrupt. OK, Twilight had less risk as the rabid fans all but assured financial success, but also less savings as it's not a particularly set intensive story. There's a lot more to movie cost than actor payroll; spending hours a day gluing fake ears and feet and making whole towns on hillsides is a lot more resource intensive than paying two people to stare stupidly at each other in Forks. If anything, Twilight had a very different problem -- LotR was already a venerable story when the movies were made so the popularity wasn't in danger of peaking; Twilight was all about striking while the iron was hot. They had to get that first movie out as fast as possible; doing all four at once was NOT going to be a hit with the shareholders.

I get your point that they MIGHT'VE saved money by shooting all the movies at once, but the tricky thing here is how much revenue they would've lost by delaying the first release by several years. My guess is a lot. The Twi-tard moms would've eagerly waited, but I've read numerous comments from teenage girls* who LURVED Twilight at 14 waking up and souring on the series by 16-17. Already the books are fast becoming old news and the last movie isn't even out yet.

*Before you have me take a seat over there, these were on "I hate Twilight" blogs like Mark Reads Twilight. I read these blogs partly out of morbid fascination and partly because they made me cry with laughter. The only reason I know their ages at all is because they posted it right in their comments. MRT is hilarious by the way; the chapter he reviews with hand-written notes is epic win.

Rawhead Rex:I personally think she's pretty farkin hot...I kinda like brooding, non-expressions on hardbody chicks.Nothing wrong with this chick for a strictly sexual, use her like a fark doll, type of arrangement.She'd be awesome and I'd be happy to have her do me until I was unable to walk.That is all.

Mugato:La Belle Chienne: Still doesn't explain how she managed to get into the Snow White movie with Charlize Theron. Like Weener's photo shows, she has the exact same facial expression for everything. UGH. I can't stand her.

Makes sense. They needed a teenager/early 20s girl. She's the biggest because of Twilight. She's who I would cast if I were a studio suit, God forbid.

I think she's alright. I never saw Twilight, and was well out of high school when it came out, so I was never obligated to hate it with every fiber of my being. Maybe that's why I don't get all the angry hate. I actually quite like the Runaways.

Also, she reminds me of this stoner/skydiver chick that I used to run around with in high school. So that gives me memories of teh happy.

Babwa Wawa:Aside from Panic Room, I haven't seen a single one of her movies.

She's a fairly generic female lead that's not _bad_ at acting and extremely good at taking direction and staying on the good side of the people she works with, apparently, and she's lucked out with some big hits. The comparison to Angelina Jolie seems fairly apt.

If it was all about just looking good, you'd never see the same actress in a movie twice, Hollywood has like seven billion good-looking actresses on tap.

fusillade762:So how long before she ends upgets confused for a statue at Madame Tussauds?

FTFY

Joking aside, is just unfortunate her biggest role yet is of such a stiff, bland and empty character, if anything she played that really well. I liked her in panic room and I've only heard good things about "on the road" so I think people are just being harsh.

I actually saw the first Twilight movie for the very first time yesterday. That... is the most fun movie EVER if you're sitting there and mocking it with a friend. The scene were she sits next to Edward in biology class and he squirms and fidgets? I mean, you could either make farting noises like he has diarrhea, or put words in his mouth to make him say that girls are icky and he hates them. Either works. And that's just the start. We basically riffed on the entire thing as if the vampires were actually X-Men. Because with their modern house and super powers, they seem... a lot like X-Men.

The other thing i noticed is that i found Kristen Stewart to be pretty attractive. Everyone keeps screaming how she's totally ugly and horrible, but i think she's cute.

I'm a little shocked that Jennifer Lawrence isn't higher on the list.There's not that many actresses that have successfully carried a $400 million grossing movie. I'd think that she's going to eclipse Stewart pretty quickly once her agent really gets going finding her prime roles.

bruce4bruce:Well the studio didn't get her with an extended 6 movie contract like they did to many of the Avengers characters.She could ask for more money.

She was under 18 when she signed for Twilight AFAIK. You cannot get a minor to sign a contract and enforce it after they turn 18.Why didn't they just hire someone over 18? Who knows? Maybe because they planned to make a bunch of films and didn't want an actress to be and look thirty by the time the last one was made?

I think one reason the Twilight films are as successful as they are is her complete lack of acting chops. Put a scene-chewer like Streep in the Bella role and all the emo teens would not be able to relate. She's a frowny okay looking girl whose lack of external emotion fits in with the imaginations of the teens who loved the books and want to relate to the on-screen Bella. It's similar to the 1940's screen test of some famous actor where the soon-to-be star looked expressionless for three minutes while they changed the lighting and background music. Happy was the same look as evil, sad was the same as orgasmic. As look as emo is in, her career and money flow will be safe. And as she ages, so will her vapid followers. It will work for a long long time.